Happy Easter to all of you. It’s an honor to have you with us. I know you could have chosen many places to spend your Easter morning, and thank you for being here. My name is Tony. I’m one of the ministers here on staff. It’s great to have you this morning as we celebrate our risen Lord and savior, Jesus Christ. If you’re maybe here for the very first time, I’d like to just tell you where we in the congregation have been in our Bible study. This community, this church community, has been walking a series of talks that we call the Ministry of Jesus, where for the better part of two years, we have been journeying with Jesus. We have followed him from the banks of the Jordan River, where he is baptized by John the Baptist, all the way to the Sea of Galilee, where he does most of his preaching and his healing. And we’ve seen him come into trial and into crucifixion in Jerusalem. Over the last two years, we have hit all of the stories. We have talked about all of the encounters. We have seen him comfort people and seen him correct people and seen him redefine the world with a message of the Kingdom of God.
We’ve seen him talk to his followers, his closest friends, about what it really means to live as a human being, what it means to love, how to pray, how to heal batter people and redeem broken hearts. And this is the journey that we have been on for the last two years, but specifically the last two months, we have walked with Jesus over the last week of his life. And we’ve spent time looking at the adoration that he received on Palm Sunday and the crown of thorns that was placed on his head on Good Friday. And what we’ve seen is Jesus Christ, this incredible character, this God man, be victorious in every area of his life and every bit of the way in which he lived. And today, we reach the culmination of all of his victories as we, in our series, are brought to the day of Easter morning, where we get to watch the victory over death. Now, let me just say this. This journey has been, for me, probably one of the greatest joys of my life. And I mean that. I’m so thankful to be a part of a church community like the church community we are in.
I’m so thankful, especially for the fact that you have so much biblical endurance. And it’s amazing that you don’t just tolerate, but you are excited about us simply walking through the life of Jesus and diving deeply into his teachings. Every week, I hear from you going, Oh, thank you. That point or that idea or that teaching was really helpful for me. I’m just so blessed to be a part of this congregation. This is a journey we’ve all been on together. And as we reach the climax of the story on Easter morning, it delights me to come to the place where I could just say thank you. Thank you for the support. Thank you for who you are. Thank you for all the people who have taught during this series. It is not lost on me the great privilege I have to stand up here and to talk to you about Jesus Christ. I am blessed beyond my ability to communicate it, to be a part of this church, and to preach here on most Sunday mornings. And so I’m pleased to tell you, as we begin the ending of this sermon series, I’m pleased to tell you to turn your Bibles to Mark Chapter 16, which is the last chapter of the Book of Mark.
That’s going to be our text this morning. If If you don’t have a Bible, don’t worry. Most of the scriptures and most of the relevant points will be up on the screen. Now, as you turn to Mark 16, I’m going to try to help us get a sense of the story of the resurrection of Jesus. But also I have an objective, and my objective is to walk together with the very first witnesses of the resurrection, these four women that we meet in Mark 16. What we’re going to discover is that it’s during the unexpected moments where God allows people to experience the miraculous. Those are the conditions of the miraculous, and we’re going to see that in Mark 16. Let me set the scene. Mark 16, Jesus has been killed. We studied that out last week. In fact, Joe did such a great job teaching on the account of Jesus’s crucifixion. Jesus’s body has been placed in the tomb, taken down from the cross, and placed in a tomb of a man named Joseph of Aramathia. He and a man named Nicodemus, who we met in John 3, get permission from Pilate, the governor, to give Jesus an honorable burial.
Pilate grants that request, and Joseph lays Jesus in the tomb that he owns. A stone is then rolled over the mouth of the tomb. And while that’s all happening, there are these religious leaders who are concerned about Jesus’s followers stealing the body of Jesus because he talks so often about raising from the dead. And so these religious leaders are going, look, what we need to do is put a guard out in front to make sure no one steals the body. So they convinced Pilate to do that, and so Pilate allows it. And so now you can picture it here. Jesus’s body is in a tomb. A stone has been rolled over it to cover the mouth. And there are guards placed up front to make sure that no one can get in to see the body. All of this happens on Friday, and that’s the way it remains until verse one of chapter 16, when Sunday morning begins. Here we go. It says this, When the Sabbath was over. Sabbath ends on Saturday at sunset. In the West, we mark our days at midnight. They mark their days at sunset. It’s been about 12 hours since the Sabbath ended.
In Luke’s account, it says it’s the first day of the week, which is Sunday, which, by the way, is why we worship on Sunday mornings, because Jesus raised from the dead on Sunday. Okay, Jesus in the tomb on Friday. He stays in the tomb on Saturday. He’s in the tomb for about 12 hours on Sunday. That is your three days in the tomb. And now we’re introduced to our main characters. Here they are, Mary Magdalene, Mary, the mother of James, and Salomé. You have one additional woman in Luke’s version of the account, a woman named Joanna. So we’re introduced to these four women, and they’re going to be the focus of the empty tomb account. So of course, they will be the focus of this lesson. Who are these women? Do we know anything about them? Well, we actually have met them in our series before. We met them all the way, like a year and six months ago in Luke 8. And they’ve been with Jesus for about two years, maybe even three years. They’ve seen everything he’s done. They’ve seen all the miracles, all the sermons. They’ve seen all the miraculous wonders he did in the Sea of Galilee.
Luke 8, it tells us that these women helped support the ministry out of their own means, meaning they gave financial Actually to the ministry. And in Mark Chapter 15, it says that in Galilee, these women had followed him and cared for his knees. So they are both financial supporters and also physical supporters of Jesus. They are what we would call disciples of Jesus. They’re followers. Mary Magdalene herself is actually a recipient of one of the miracles of Jesus. She has demons, and those demons are exercised. So they aren’t new characters. In fact, they have seen the resurrection. They have seen Jesus being laid, and they come into focus at the end of… Sorry, in the Book of Luke, where it says this. It says, They were home and prepared spices and perfume. This is after Jesus is laid in the tomb, but they rested on the Sabbath in obedience to the commandment. Okay, so Jesus’ body is taken down, placed in the tomb, and these women go home to prepare to give Jesus a burial ritual. They Sabbath on Saturday, and they make to meet at the tomb early on Sunday morning. They brought spices.
They brought spices so that they might go and anoint the body of Jesus. Jesus is their teacher. Jesus is their Lord. Jesus is their master. They loved him. They served him. They watched him be brutally killed, pulled down from a tree, and placed in a tomb. No doubt, they shed tears. They suffered tremendous agony, anxiety, fear, maybe even depression. But they decide they want to go visit their dead friend and do the thing that you did for people you loved in the first century, which was pay homage to him by placing spices on his body. This is not something special. This is just what you did with those you loved. Why did you do this? Well, because dead bodies smell bad. And smelling bad is a point of shame. Some of you get this more than others of you. That was an insult. I apologize. Yeah, Amen, bro. So they brought spices because they smell. They don’t want Jesus’s body to smell. It’s a ritual. Hey, here’s the man who we love. And at the end of his life, we don’t want him to produce, to cause shame by having a bad odor. That’s literally what’s happening.
And let me just make an extremely important note here. These women, in their minds, are going to see a dead body. That’s who they’re going to see. These women in their mind are going to see a dead man. This is an open casket. They’re about to hang out with or they’re about to embrace and bless a dead man. That’s where they’re headed. And they have no idea that they’re about to be the supporting cast to the greatest miracle in all of human history. They have no idea. And it made me think a little bit that, isn’t that the way that God works? Have you ever noticed this? I bet you you have, but Have you ever noticed that God chooses to place miracles in the mundane? In the ordinary stuff is where the miraculous takes place. God never sets up a big miracle by all this pomp and circumstance. It’s always It’s something that feels like it’s just a normal part of your life that God intervenes. You think about the woman at the well in John 4, she’s just going to get water, and she meets the Messiah who changes her life forever. You can think about the shepherd boy in a field who eventually becomes the one that slays Goliath.
You can think about the guys who walk around the walls of Jericho. All they’re doing is walking, shouting some trumpets, and the walls come crassing down. It’s a couple of loaves and a few fish feed 5,000 people. It’s the unschooled and ordinary men that change the world. This is the topography of the way that God works. He takes people who are ordinary and things that are mundane, and he creates a miracle articles out of them. It made me think a little bit about my family. It makes me think about the way that we, in my family, thought about going to church when I was a kid. When I was a kid, we went to church like two times a year. Easter and Christmas, and maybe Mother’s Day, if my mom made us go. We went three times a year. In fact, here’s a picture. This is me. I don’t know. I’m like nine or 10. Look at me. Yeah. Look at him. I’m in my Sunday best. I am almost certainly wearing my dad’s suit. Look at that. Look at that thing. My daughter saw this week and she said, Bobby, that looks nothing like you.
You’re way darker now. And I said, it’s because I live in South Florida. So this is me. Look at that tie. Look at that pattern. This is us. We’re headed to church because this is what you did on Easter. This is what you did on Christmas. This is what you did on Mother’s Day. And I’m just smiling. I’m all excited. But you know why we went to church? We did not go to church because we wanted to worship the risen savior. That’s not why we went to church. We didn’t go to church because we were prepared to see the miraculous work of Jesus Christ in the lives of average people. We went to church because that’s what you did. You go to church. It was a ritual. It was an act. And my mom and dad never thought, going to church, it would be going to church where God would change our lives forever. We weren’t looking for a miracle until one day My family went to church, and in a matter of speaking, God shook the life of my dad, who then subsequently changed the trajectory of our lives forever. He wasn’t looking for anything special.
And then he walked into church and everything changed. And 20 years or so later, here I stand. And my mom is in the church, and my dad’s in the church, and they worship God together. What is that? That’s a miracle. That Sunday morning when I’m nine years old, we thought we were just coming to church, and then we were going to go eat ham. That’s what we thought. We thought we were going to church, and then we were going to go a potluck. That’s what we thought. And then God intercepted our lives. It’s in the mundane. It’s in the rituals where God does his amazing work. And in fact, I reflected a little bit on this because this faith, this whole thing, this following Jesus is like my life, but it’s not like my family business. It’s not like I grew up and my whole family were a bunch of preachers. I did one of those histories where you look up your genealogy and you find out where you’ve been and who your family is. And you know what I find in my history and in my genealogy? I do not find preachers. Let me guarantee that.
I find murderers. Now, it’s not funny, but it’s funny. You know what I’m saying? It’s not funny, but it’s ironic. You know what I find? I find people that are addicted to alcohol. I find men who have abandoned their families. You know, I find people in jail and people on drugs and people who are addicted. And so when I stand here, what I’m saying is this is a miracle from God. And my family sitting in these seats is a miracle from God. My parents still being together is a miracle from God. And it all came because one day I put on an oversize jacket and went to church. And look, I know some of you are sitting here and you’re feeling this exact way. You’re here on Easter morning because your mom or your brother or your cousin or your friend dragged you here. And they said, or your spouse was like, You better find a church or I’m leaving you. And you typed, Broward, church is in Broward, and we have good SEO. And you stumbled in this room and you’re here for Easter because it’s what you’re supposed to do. And look, you look good.
You’re wearing colored shirts. I could see all of you guys. You’re beautiful looking. And maybe what I’m saying is you’re not expecting anything. And you’re not expecting anything because you just want to go to church and then you want to go home. Maybe you’re not expecting anything, but I want to tell you that it’s in moments just like this where God can intervene and change the trajectory of your life and of your family’s life forevermore. This is what the women, I bet you, are about to experience, they have no idea. All they’re doing, they just want to go to the tomb. They just want to do something nice for the ones that they love, for someone they love. They’re not there to have their lives changed. They’re not there to see a miracle. They They just want to support. And so here’s what happens. By the way, this is verse 2. I have to get going. We’re slow. Here we go. Very early on the first day of the week, just after sunrise, they were on their way to the tomb. It’s early morning and the group sets out to go to the tomb. We pick up in verse 3.
They were on their way to the tomb, and they asked each other, who will roll the stone away from the entrance of the tomb? Have you ever been so depressed that you lose logic? This is what happens them. So they have this whole plan. And what’s the plan? I’m going to bring spices to the body of Jesus. But they forget a couple of things. There are guards in front, and there’s a stone that’s too large to move. What are we supposed to do? How are we supposed to do it? How are we supposed to get in and anoint the body when I can’t even move the stone? It says, verse 4, But when they looked up, they saw that the stone, which was very large, had been rolled away. Let me add another a little detail. The group doesn’t actually all get there at the same time. John’s account tells us that it was dark when Mary Magdalene arrived. So you can read it yourself. It’s in John, chapter 20. So you can think of it like this. All of these women, these four women, have this plan to go to the tomb at dawn.
Mary Magdalene arrives before dawn, early in the morning, and she comes, and it’s still dark outside. And when she gets there, before any of her commanding to get there, she notices what the women will eventually notice, that the stone is rolled away and that there are no guards guarding the tomb. But before they arrive, she is afraid. And so instantly Mary Magdalene instantly runs back to the disciples, that’s James and that’s John, to tell them this is what she thinks happens. This is John 20:2. It says, She says, Someone has stolen the body. So she thinks Jesus is still dead and someone took the body. And immediately the story goes that Peter and John run back to the tomb. And I have to just mention something. In that little detail, there’s a really funny thing. This is totally men, but both those guys run back to the tomb. And the Bible tells you who got there first. John, who’s the writer, goes, Peter ran, but I got there first. That’s a very men thing to do. Anyway, it doesn’t matter. So So Mary arrives before the other women arrive. You got that? She sees all that’s happened.
She’s in shock, and she runs away. The other women, while she’s running away, they arrive. And when they arrive, they see the tomb is open and there are no more guards. And maybe because they’re brave, maybe because it’s bright, they decide to do what Mary did not do, and they take a step into the tomb. As they entered the tomb, they saw a young man dressed in white robe sitting on the right side, and they were alarmed. The stone is rolled away, the tomb is empty, and the Bible tells us, here it says they saw a young man, but all the other accounts says they saw angels. One angel, maybe two angels, but they look so dazzling. It’s like looking at the sun. You might be confused if you saw one angel or two angels if you were looking at the sun. You know what I’m saying? So they get in and they’re just utterly amazed. They look there and they go, What is happening? And the Bible tells us that they see it and they are terrified. In Luke’s account, he uses the word where we get the word phobia from. They are afraid.
This is nail-biting, knee-knocking fear. They take a step in, looking for their dead friend, and they are confronted by an angel. I need to stop for a moment and make a second observation. Here’s something I’ve noticed. I bet you have noticed this as well. Those of you who have experienced the miracles of God in your life, I’ve noticed this, that miracles always come with a sense of terror. I think there’s a really practical reason why this is important. When God moves in only the ways that God can move, it shakes you to your core. There’s a story where Jesus quiets the… They’re in the wind and waves in a boat, and he quiets the storm. And instead of the disciples going, Yeah, you quieted the storms, the Bible says they were terrified. Every story where Jesus does a miracle, everyone is like, gives praise to God, but is also completely alarmed. And here’s a takeaway for you. I want you to know that if God confronts you in a mundane moment like this, if he meets you where you’re at, he will never allow you just to be comfortable. If you want a relationship with God, like you want to come back to church, you want to reengage, you want to do better spiritually, maybe you’re thinking I want to lead my family better.
I feel like I need to come back to church. I want to dive in to the whole Jesus thing because my life’s a mess. But I want to tell you from the beginning, when you do that, it is going to terrify you what God asks for. God asks for everything in your life to change. And you have to answer the question, are you courageous enough to die to yourself? Are you courageous enough to follow his will instead of your will? Are you courageous enough to give up your ways, to confess your sinful life, to step out on faith, to be humble? Are you courageous enough to suffer with Jesus Christ? And I just have to tell you, if you choose to meet Jesus, if Jesus intercepts your life, it is going to utterly terrify you what he asks you to do. Christianity is not just something you sit and you experience on one day a week. What it is, is an encounter with a living God that changes every part of you. And I’ve learned in my life that there are no miracles without a little bit of terror. And there are no miracles without being ripped out of your comfort zone.
And maybe it’s because when we’re afraid, when we’re uncomfortable, then God can ultimately be our Comforter. These ladies are experiencing just that. They’re about to see a miracle, but they are terrified. The story continues, verse 6. Don’t be alarmed. That’s what the angel says. That’s easy for you to say, Mr. Angel, right? You’re looking for Jesus, the Nazareen who was crucified. And they’re standing there nodding their head. Yeah, that’s exactly who we’re looking for. And these are the first words concerning the resurrection of the Bible. He has risen. It’s one Greek word. It means to wake up. It means to get up. It’s used primarily in the New Testament to mean someone raising from the dead. He is not here. See the place where they laid him. What’s going through their mind? What’s going through their mind? How do you make sense of this? The Bible actually tells us exactly what’s going through their mind. It says that they were troubling and bewildered, which is what you would be, right? I want you to imagine for a second. I invited you to go or you were invited to go to your friend’s funeral. It’s a horrible thing, but your friend passed away and you’re going to his funeral and you arrive.
And when you arrive there, there’s no one in the room. It’s just you and you see an angel. And the angel says, hey, are you looking for Paul? He’s not here anymore. He’s risen from the dead. Now, at that moment, you may want to check yourself in. You know what I’m saying? You’re not thinking, Woohoo. You’re thinking, Am I hallucinating? You’re thinking, What does this mean? How could this… And again, the scriptures are laced with what this means. We’re going to talk about it more in our series in upcoming weeks. But the scriptures talk about what this means. Through the power of the Holy spirit, we learn so much about the beautiful theologies about the resurrection. We can look at and marvel over and talk about things like the Christus Victor idea or imputation, which is where you take the righteousness of God and God takes on your sin and he replaces it. This is a beautiful idea. We could talk about the new heaven and the new Earth and the actual physical miracle, a resurrection of the earthly bodies. And we could talk about all of that, and it’s beautiful. But this is with people who have been writing after the resurrection for years and years and years.
But can you just imagine what it would have been like for those women on that first day? They wouldn’t have had any of that idea. All they would have been thinking is, wait, what does this mean for me? My point here is we can spend a lot of time on that, and we certainly They will. But for Mary and Salomé and Joanna, what was the lesson they would have gotten? And I’ve spent a good part of this week considering that lesson. And here’s what I’ve come up with. This is what I think they would have been thinking. It’s something like this. If he’s been brought back to life, then he is who he said he was. Maybe that’s it. Okay, wait, hold on. So you’re saying he’s alive. What that means is that when he said he is the son of God, that means he is the son of God, that he is the Messiah, that it’s true, that salvation is found in no one else, for there is no name under heaven to mankind by which man can be saved. That it’s true. Like the things he said are true. If you’re sitting there, maybe you’re always doubting.
Imagine those women who are no longer doubting, and all of a sudden they’re going, Oh, my goodness, he is the way, the truth in the life. Oh, what does this mean? That means he sustains man, that everything was made by him and for him and through him, that he is the author and the perfector of our faith, that he did come to seek and save the lost and heal the redeemed. And then you start thinking about what the applications are and the implications are for you and me. And then you start thinking, well, hold on. If that is true, like if Jesus actually rose from the dead and you were coming face to face with that fact, what it would mean for you is that it doesn’t matter where you’ve been. It doesn’t matter if you’ve been tired or wearied or broken or sinful or hurting or divorced or you have addiction in your life, or you feel overwhelmed, or you lost a loved one, or your situation is super complicated, or you feel like there’s shame in your life because you’re addicted to something, or you feel like you’re getting older and you’re losing your purpose or you’re addicted to alcohol or you feel like you’re losing your family and your marriage, and if you feel hopeless and harassed and helpless, if the idea is that if Jesus rose from the dead, then here’s the point.
He can change your situation, and he can resurrect you and your problem. And it means this, and this is so profound. It means that he delights in bringing sons and daughters to glory. That he could find you where you are, that he could reshape you into the image that you were always meant to be, that you can be who you were supposed to be. That means that the resurrection is real. That means you, like you, you sitting in this room, can have your life changed by his grace. That he could do a miracle in your life. It means that he is going to prepare a place for you, and he will take you home to be with him. And I stand here, and I’m just saying this, I stand here with the privilege of seeing miracle on top of miracle on top of miracle of the people in this room. People who were just walking to class and they were invited to go to a discussion about the Bible who God used that moment to change their lives forever. And they are miracles in this room. People who were shopping at a Walmart and some random person came up and said, come to to church.
And they said, I don’t want to go to church. And they came to church and God changed their marriages forever. People who were just looking online, churches in the area and stumbled into this room and God’s spirit has changed their lives forever. We are witnessing sitting in this room, miracle upon miracle upon miracle upon miracle, because the truth of the matter is, Jesus rose from the dead, and what he said is true. There have been people who have come to know Christ Jesus, who have been changed by his grace. And it’s a miracle that we are sitting in this room together. Let’s end this verse seven. Here we go. I love this. The angel begins to talk to these guys. They are afraid. He says, But go tell his disciples and Peter, he is going ahead of you into Galilee. There you will see him, just as he told you. This is a command, go tell Peter, go tell the disciples to go ahead on to Galilee. These women, these four women, in a matter of speaking, they are the start of the church. They’re the beginning. They are the apostle to the Apostles. The word apostle means the one sent.
They’re the first people to ever talk about the resurrection. And they go and they become the people who spread the word to the Apostles. Go to Galilee. Jesus Christ has risen from the dead. They’re in the south in Jerusalem, so they have to go all the way to the northern part of Israel and to Galilee. And the women leave. They’re trembling and bewildered. The women went out and fled the tomb. They said nothing to anyone because they were afraid. They’re afraid. And the The story goes that they do go back to the Apostles. And as they’re headed back there, John and Peter arrive, and they’re all so confused. And they go back, and eventually Mary arrives, and Jesus actually engages with Mary there for a second. But when these women go back, they go into the room and they say, Guys, Jesus has risen from the dead. And you might think, Well, I wonder what happens next. You know what happens next? They do nothing. Do you know why? Because they do not believe. And so they sit in that room and they have to wait for Jesus himself to come and to go, Go to Galilee.
What are you doing here? They don’t believe. And I say all that to say, some of you might be sitting in this room and you’re thinking to yourself, I do not believe any of this. And I get it. That’s fine. That’s cool. Here’s what I wanted you to do. I want you, though, to keep coming back. Just come Come back again. Come back next week, come back the week after that. And I’m going to pray that God will intercept your life as you’re sitting here, that he will make himself known. He will make himself present. And if you’re courageous enough, maybe you will. Maybe you’ll engage, and maybe you’ll have a relationship with Jesus Christ that changes the trajectory of your life. So this is where the story ends. But how about our discussion here today? We still have some work to do, not today, maybe, but over the course of the rest of this series. This series, we have two more months to talk about this because here’s where we are. Jesus has risen from the dead, but no one believes him. That’s where we are in our story. Jesus is alive, but no one believes he’s alive.
And what Jesus is going to do is just go person to person and impact the lives of these men in a tremendous this tremendous way. There’s a lot to talk about, a lot to flesh out. The next few weeks are going to be important in our series. Don’t go on vacation. Stay here. You can go on vacation, but then follow online. Anyway, some takeaways for us. I believe that God wants to have some resurrection power in your life, that he wants to do a miracle in your life. I believe that. And I believe that those miracles are found in ordinary places. So come and sit and learn, be engaged with the person of Jesus Christ. And when he calls you, just be prepared because he is not calling you to become a Sunday churchgoer. He’s calling you to be a disciple of his. So get some courage and don’t miss out. The last thing is Jesus is who he said he is. And so what that means is no matter how far you’ve fallen, there is still something beautiful on the horizon for your life. Happy Easter, guys. We’re going to take communion. Every week, we take a little bit of bread and a little bit of juice, and it’s a representation of Jesus’s body and blood poured out.
It’s a ritual we do here in the church. It’s a thing that we participate in because the Bible tells us to. We eat the bread, we drink the juice, and we take a moment of quiet reflection just to remember the sacrifice of Jesus Christ. Joe, a couple of weeks said, this isn’t a mindless ritual. So I want to encourage you just to take some time just to consider what this means for you. Let’s go to God in prayer. Father, we are amazed by your love, by your grace. Lord, you are so good to us. God, thank you for helping us find you in ordinary situations. God, I am overwhelmed by how blessed I am to think about the fact that I stand here today as the worst of sinners with no pedigree and no history of spirituality. And you, Lord, found me and found my family and redeemed us and continue to use us to redeem others. What an amazing gift it is to be a disciple of yours. God, what a room full of miracles sitting here of men and women who have come to know you and have been changed forever. Father, in my heart, I want to take a moment to pray for the men in this Father, I feel prompted because I know that it’s the men here that in some ways will help their whole families if they get it.
God, I know there are sons in this room and there are fathers in this room, and there are brothers in this room who need to get it right. God, and so I pray that you will penetrate the outer shell, that hard outer shell of the men in here’s heart. God, that your work, that your word will penetrate them, that will go right into the core of their being, God, and that they’ll want to respond to your gospel of grace. Lord, I pray that you give them the courage to be the men that you call them to be. I pray that they look at Jesus Christ and they find a hero, a man who is truly admirable. And Father, as we take a time to just reflect on your sacrifice, your death, and your resurrection, I pray, dear Lord, that you will allow this meditation to be something that’s pleasing to you. We love you. It’s in Christ’s name we pray. Amen.